


Sunflower

by BrookeWritesSometimes



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Cheesy, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Nicknames, Souji is a lil jealous, Writing practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29174307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrookeWritesSometimes/pseuds/BrookeWritesSometimes
Summary: “Why do you call me Partner, exactly?”—————In which Souji tries to find a new nickname for Yosuke while gardening.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	Sunflower

**Author's Note:**

> Ok this took me like 4 hours for some reason even tho it’s only 2k words
> 
> Also I wrote this at literally 3am so I apologize if there’s any mistakes.
> 
> Also shoutout to the person in one of my Discord servers who gave me the prompt of ‘Souji calling Yosuke sunflower as a nickname’ bc that inspired this entire fic
> 
> Also, kind of important: I’M NOT JAPANESE AND THE WHOLE ‘YO MEANS SUN’ THING IS COMING FROM A DISCORD FACT THAT IS PROBABLY INACCURATE. I know that it’s 99.9% wrong but I only realized that after having written a majority of this and I didn’t want to change the entire idea of the fic. Ok thank you for reading that now on with the actual story

“Why do you call me Partner, exactly?” Souji asked as Yosuke helped him weed his garden. It probably seemed like a random thing to bring up, especially considering the conversation they’d been having a few moments prior had nothing to do with it, but that didn’t matter to Souji. It was something that had been on his mind for a while now, and he didn’t have much else to talk about.

He knew the answer was probably more simple than he’d made it out to be— Partner was a synonym for teammate after all, and Yosuke had created the nickname far before they had started dating. Any other meanings that could have been derived from it simply didn’t exist at the time of its creation, so that really only left the one option. Still, he couldn’t let go of the small, unlikely hope that maybe it was a bit deeper than that. 

“Well, uh..” Yosuke seemed to be a bit conflicted on what to answer, briefly halting his weed pulling to presumably think it over. “It was originally just because, well- you know, the whole TV world thing. We were the only two in there at first, so-” Yosuke paused to pull a particularly large weed, then continued. “-So it just made sense. Then it just sort of spiraled into this huge thing, and now it feels weird to call you anything else.” Yosuke threw the handful of weeds he was holding into the ever growing pile on the sidewalk of the Dojima residence. The pile in question was originally a bag, undoubtedly a more efficient solution, but it eventually filled up. It would have made sense to simply go inside and get another one, but neither of them wanted to leave the presence of the other for the minute or so it would take to do that.

That was Souji’s reasoning, at least. He couldn’t speak for Yosuke— maybe he was just that lazy.

“And, uh, we’re like- Partner Partners now.. so.. I guess that adds to it.” It was way too hot outside to tell if the bright red color coating Yosuke’s face was from the heat or his comment, but Souji hoped for the latter. It sounded like that was the truth, going by the embarrassed yet happy tone in his voice.

“It has so much meaning,” Souji said, his voice hiding his inner.. jealousy? Was it jealousy? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he wished he had a similar nickname for Yosuke. One filled with so much meaning that it was irreplaceable, and yet sweet sounding nonetheless. He could always just steal the Partner nickname, sure, but it wouldn’t be the same. Besides, it always felt strange when the roles were reversed. Sure it made Yosuke turn about the color of Yukiko’s shirt everytime he said it, which was definitely a positive, but it felt.. wrong. It had always been Yosuke’s nickname for him, and not the other way around. 

“Yeah, it’d be so weird if I never came up with it. I mean hell, saying Souji doesn’t even feel right anymore,” Yosuke said, followed by several mumbles of his name to further the point. He wasn’t wrong— hearing his actual name come out of Yosuke’s mouth was something he wasn’t used to.

“I need something to call you.” Souji hadn’t realized that he’d said that out loud until Yosuke stared at him, confused.

“Uh, I have a name. Did you forget it or something?” Yosuke added another ‘weed’ to the still-growing pile, although Souji was pretty sure that was an actual plant. He didn’t have the heart to tell him.

“I could never,” Souji grabbed the bottle of weedkiller that had been lying ignored on the sidewalk for the better part of an hour, and continued, “But your name isn’t a nickname. I need a nickname.”

“Oh. Well, there’s always Partner. That works,” Yosuke suggested.

“That’s your nickname for me. It’s not the same.” Souji sprayed the parts of the ground that they had removed weeds from with weed killer, and laid the bottle back down where it was.

“I guess you’re- Jesus, there’s _more?”_ Yosuke sulked for a brief moment, discovering another bunch of weeds that had been hidden by rocks, then continued. “But there’s.. hm… you could always call me a disappointment, if you want. But that’s not really romantic.”

“Yosuke.” Souji turned in the direction of his boyfriend with a blank stare. He hated hearing Yosuke talk about himself like this, though it didn’t always come across that well physically. All of his negative emotions tended to blend together into one face, and.. well..

“Aah, don’t stare at me like that! Fine, fine, I’m sorry!” Yosuke visibly jumped back, which wasn’t exactly the reaction Souji was going for. As long as it got Yosuke to stop bringing himself down, though, it didn’t matter.

“Don’t talk about yourself like that, it’s not true,” he scolded.

“It is, thou-”

“ _Yosuke.”_ He stared once again, and Yosuke reacted the exact same way as the first time.

“Okay fine, it’s not! I’m sorry!”

“Good.” Souji pulled out what he really hoped were the last weeds, but then he noticed a few more in the corners of the garden. At least they were close to being done.

“Well you could try like.. baby or something. Wait no, that’s way too cheesy. Never call me that.” Souji repeated the idea in his head, not particularly caring about Yosuke’s words. Nope, baby didn’t sound right either. He hadn’t really expected it to— it didn’t have any meaning to it and was incredibly overused in almost every form of media.

“What about.. Okay, I give up. My name is fine, you know. Besides, I don't know if my heart could take you using a pet name on me everyday.” ‘ _Then imagine how I feel,’_ Is what he almost said, but quickly decided against. Even if it did make his stomach feel like ice-cream that someone had left out on a hot summer day, he still enjoyed Yosuke’s nickname far more than he could put into words. And accidentally scaring him into not using it was quite possibly the last thing he wanted to do. 

Finally realizing that the last of the weeds had been taken care of, Souji grabbed the weedkiller and sprayed everything one last time. He was thankful that this was all finally ‘over,’ though they did still have the massive pile to deal with. He tried not to think about that, though, and walked over to the front of the garden where Yosuke was standing.

“Oh my god, it’s finally done. No offense, Partner, but I’m never doing this again.” There it was again, that nickname. Yup, it was definitely jealousy that he was feeling earlier. He wanted- no, he _needed_ to come up with something to match it. He needed to give Yosuke everything he could because he was still putting himself down, and his heart couldn’t handle that. Maybe if he just gave it a little more, Yosuke would finally realize just how amazing he was.

That wasn’t the entire reason he was so set on finding a meaningful nickname for Yosuke, though. A part of him was just envious of the way the word ‘Partner’ single handedly turned all of his limbs to jello every time it came out of Yosuke’s mouth. Souji wanted to have a word that could do that to him, and reusing Yosuke’s nickname didn’t count.

“None taken, but thanks for helping me just this once.” Souji truly was thankful for Yosuke’s help in sorting through this mess. Without him he’d only be halfway done, and that sounded like a nightmare.

“It’s no problem. It was honestly almost worth it, your garden looks amazing without all of the clutter. I really love the sunflowers you guys have, they stand out so much.” Aww, that was sweet of him. Souji was particularly fond of the sunflowers himself, and-

Wait a minute.

...

_Sunflower._

It was perfect.

Wait a minute, he had to think rationally about this. Was he really that desperate for some sort of meaningful nickname? Just because Yosuke had acknowledged them one time didn't make it mean anything. It was just as plain and void of meaning as any of the classic pet names he’d seen on TV a billion times. He had to think of something better.

Think. Was there any sort of pun he could make with his name? Yosuke. Yo-su-ke. Yo-

..Wait a minute.

The ‘Yo’ in Yosuke meant sun. Sun. Sunflower. 

This was probably the cheesiest thing Souji ever even thought about (which was definitely saying something), but that sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him. Worst case scenario, Yosuke would just say no. There couldn’t be any harm in asking.

“Can I call you sunflower?” He asked with absolutely zero context, therefore completely confusing Yosuke. 

Oops.

“What?” 

“Can I call you my sunflower as a nickname? Yo means sun, you know.” The way he could physically see the shift in Yosuke’s facial expression from confusion to slight embarrassment as he explained that was immensely satisfying in a way that even he couldn’t explain. He braced himself for the inevitable ‘What? Why? Absolutely not!’ that he expected to come out of his Partner’s (or should he say Sunflower’s?) mouth, but was pleasantly surprised.

“ _God,_ you’re so corny! That’s- you- I-” ..Okay, not too far off from what he expected. He decided to take corny as a compliment, seeing as how nearly every single time Yosuke had called him that was through a face full of blush.

“If you don’t want me to then I won’t. It was just a suggestion.” As much as he enjoyed making Yosuke feel embarrassed and flustered, he didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. Souji wouldn’t exactly blame him if he was— having someone ask to call you the name of a plant out of nowhere wasn't exactly the most normal of situations.

“Can you, uh, say it again? Like, as a nickname? I want to see how it feels.” He didn’t say no. _He didn’t say no._ Granted he didn’t exactly say yes either, but this was still miles better than what he’d been expecting.

“Of course, my little sunflower.” Souji nervously scanned Yosuke’s face for his reaction, praying silently that it would be positive.

“Wow, that was..” Yosuke trailed off, flustered sounding and intently staring at the pavement they were standing on.

“Good?” Souji said, (hopefully) completing his sentence. He didn’t want to make Yosuke uncomfortable, but _god_ did the thought of calling Yosuke sunflower every day make his stomach flutter.

“-Amazing. Please call me that, like, always.” Souji let out a relieved sigh. Sunflower. Sunflower. Sunflower. It didn’t matter how many times he repeated that phrase in his head, it was still just as cute as it was the first time he’d thought of the idea.

It truly was perfect.

“Ok, I will.” He smiled, unintentionally but brightly, and Yosuke smiled back.

“Thank you, Partner.”

“It’s no problem, sunflower.”

They stood in silence for a few seconds, before Yosuke spoke up once again.

“..So, uh, sorry to break the whole romantic atmosphere and stuff, but who's gonna clean up the massive pile of weeds?” ..Right, the pile was still there. 

They really should have just gotten another bag.

“I love you, Yosuke. My sunflower. My beautiful ray of sunshine.” 

“....Okay fine, I’ll do it. Don’t expect this to work all the time, though! I’m not as sappy as you are.”

“Can you also bring me something to drink? My gorgeous little sunflower?” Yosuke stared at him with a look so menacing that it almost didn’t feel like the same person from a few moments prior, and then mumbled a defeated “..Fine.”

..Maybe this new nickname had more applications than he thought.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! You don’t have to leave either of them, but comments and kudos are appreciated!!
> 
> Also I have commissions open now! Check my Tumblr account (@BrookeWritesSometimes) for more details!


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